If you are a David Sedaris fan-and I am-you must read his newest book of essays.  The focal point is his home on Emerald Isle, North Carolina that he named The Sea Section.  The past few Thanksgivings Sedaris, his partner, his father, and his three sisters as well as his brother, his brother’s wife and their daughter celebrate there.  From something one of these individuals says or does, he segues into such topics as Fitbits, a fox named Carol, and what it must be like to be on an airplane with stomach flu.  Even the family tragedies that he describes are interspersed with humorous anecdotes about himself and the human condition.  Many paragraphs in Calypso are laugh out loud funny! I promise.

 

 

Kevin Powers,  winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, has written a powerful novel spanning over 100 years in rural Virginia.  A Shout in the Ruins is actually two stories with the character George Seldom holding them both together.  It is the 1950’s and George, a light-skinned Black man over ninety years old, is ready to die, but first he wants to return to the town he came to when he was three years old.  The second story is about George’s life before he is three year old when slavery was the way of life in Virginia.

Going back and forth in time is a bit confusing until the reader can grasp who all the main characters are.  However, that is its only flaw.  For the most part, A Shout in the Ruins is an intense, riveting, sometimes violent depiction of The Civil War and its repercussions almost a century later.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright has lived in Texas almost his entire life.  While he feels drawn to Texas, there are political, cultural and historical events which make him less than proud of The Lone Star State.  When I think of Texas, images of gun-toting conservatives come to mind; however, it is also the state that gave us Whole Foods and Janis Joplin.  Wright introduces his readers to politicians, writers, musicians and oil barons .  From this composite picture, Texas is seen with all of its beauty and blemishes.

Lawrence Wright has a straight-forward, easy to read style with some self-effacing humor thrown in.  Does he make a good case for his home state?  After reading God Save Texas, I still would never want to live there.

I started to read That Kind of Mother because I was intrigued that a book about motherhood was written by a man.  Rebecca Stone has it made.  She has a loving husband, an adorable young son and a caring, efficient nanny who she believes is her good friend.  When her nanny, Priscilla, dies in childbirth, Rebecca decides with the consent of her husband and Priscilla’s family to adopt the infant.  Rebecca is a poet who goes through life not thinking of consequences or other people’s lives beyond her purview.  She doesn’t think of the problems involved in raising a Black child in a white world.

I ran hot and cold with That Kind of Mother.  Some chapters were poignant and/or insightful; others were vapid and didn’t seem to serve any purpose.

Rachel Kushner, two time finalist for The National Book Award, has written a gritty, shocking and sad third novel.  Romy Hall was doing drugs and having sex when she was twelve years old.  Before she is put in prison after receiving two consecutive life sentences, she was a lap dancer at The Mars Room in San Francisco.  Through her musings and the narrations of several other characters, including her teacher in prison and the man she murdered, we learn about Romy’s life before, during and after her incarceration.  Her narrative voice, although undramatic, describes a life of hardship, danger, and poverty.  Yet Romy doesn’t want to be pitied; she just wants to tell her story.

Kushner is a fine writer, but her descriptions of life in and out of prison are not pleasant.  The Mars Room depicts the seamy side of life in the rawest way.

Tara Westover was born in rural Idaho, the youngest of seven children.  Her family was Mormon, but radically different from most practicing Mormons.  Her father was strict to the point of being dictatorial.  He did not believe in any government institutions, nor any schools, hospitals or doctors.  Her mother was a self-taught midwife who concocted oils and salves that she believed cured all diseases.  Tara, like all of her siblings, was taught by her mother to read, but that was the end of her schooling.   She knew only simple math, no history, science or literature, yet through much perseverance as well as innate intelligence, she was admitted to Brigham Young University when she was seventeen and went on to earn a Masters and PhD from Cambridge University in England.  How she went from being an isolated youngster who spent her days collecting, sorting and cutting scrap metal to a very accomplished young woman and how this affected her relationship with her family. is the plot of this remarkable memoir.

 

Although I have little interest in rockets or space travel,  I chose to read Robert Kurson’s latest work of nonfiction because I thoroughly enjoyed Shadow Divers and Crashing Through.  Rocket Men is the story of Apollo 8 which was launched in late December 1968.  In order to beat the Russians and be the first country to have men circle the moon,  Apollo 8 was hastily put together, and some experts felt the dangers outweighed the advantages.  The reader learns about the three astronauts-Borman, Lovell and Anders-not only during the flight but from their birth to the present.  Kurson also takes us into the lives of their families and what they did while the three men were off in space.  Interspersed throughout Rocket Men are anecdotes about what was occurring in the world in 1968.

I liked this book more than I thought I would.  Kurson’s prose is simple and straight forward, yet it manages to clearly evoke the dangers, turmoil and excitement before, during and after the flight of Apollo 8.

Paul, age nineteen, meets Susan, age forty-eight, when they are paired together for a tennis mixed doubles match.  Susan is married and has two daughters who are close to Paul in age.  Despite a number of differences, they fall in love and eventually move in together.  Although they encounter several set backs, they stay together for almost a decade.  Their love affair and its aftermath is described by Paul after Susan has died and he is a man in his sixties.  Throughout the narrative, Paul searches for a quote, phrase or idea that describes exactly what love is.

For those who want a fast paced plot, The Only Story is not for you.  However, I enjoyed Barnes’s story, his characters and his digressions about love, memory and honesty.

 

You don’t have to be a fan of Greek mythology to enjoy and appreciate Madeline Miller’s second novel.  Circe is a daughter of Helios, god of the sun.  Although, she is not a goddess,  she practices witchcraft and is immortal.  When she turns a rival into a monster, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island where she concocts potions and lives among lions and wolves.   Although she spends most of her years alone on Aiaia, she has some illustrious visitors-Hermes, Odysseus, Penelope and their son, Telemachus.  Throughout her life, Circe has been attracted to mortal men, even though she knows it will bring her nothing but sorrow.

Circe was a delightful read.  Miller’s prose is simple and clear yet beautifully descriptive.  The characters come alive and the settings are vividly rendered.

I don’t always like Meg Wolitzer’s novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  There are four main characters in The Female Persuasion, and I found all of them real, complex and engaging.  Greer Kadetsky is smart,shy, ambitious and the daughter of two unmotivated, unconcerned hippies.  Her boyfriend, Cory, is smart, loving, creative and sensitive.  Her best friend, Zee, is a lesbian who wants to work for a cause, but not sure what it should be.  Greer’s mentor, Faith Frank is a well-known, articulate leader of the women’s movement.  Although Greer is the one who has a strong relationship with Cory, Zee and Faith, each of these characters can stand on their own.

At the core of this novel is the theme of how one decides what is the right path to choose in life, yet The Female Pesuasion also depicts a lot of timely issues using engrossing, easy to read prose.